


The Boys of Summer

by havisham



Category: The Simpsons
Genre: Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 12:38:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I can tell you my love for you will still be strong /  After the boys of summer have gone</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Boys of Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt on - The Simpsons, older!Bart/Older!Milhouse, _we were both young when I first saw you._

Bart is drunk when he first kisses Milhouse, and he tastes like beer and nacho residue and a little bit of free-flowing lust. He pulls away, brushing back his messy blond hair and looks pretty pleased with himself. Milhouse blinks and wishes he still had glasses to fiddle with, to take off and wipe away the condensation and oil from Bart’s face on his. 

It’s not what he expected, when he asked Bart around for drinks, a few hours ago. 

Milhouse is only in town for a few days, swinging through on his way east to west, to his first real job after college. He hasn’t been back to Springfield since the summer of his freshman year, when his dad moved away for good. His mom was already long gone by then, and Milhouse still gets rambling emails from her about the majesty of the Southwest. He just forwards them to his dad, it’s his way of keeping the family together. He’s not even sure his dad has a computer or anything, they’ve lost touch awhile ago.

Bart’s got a farmer’s tan from his construction gig, a line of tanned, brown skin again white, and he takes off his t-shirt and then his pants and turns to Milhouse to say -- “Hey man, this place got a pool?” 

Milhouse nods, and follows him down. He knows he ought to ask more questions, like: _what the fuck, man? What are you on?_ And, more importantly, _why?_ But Bart’s got a way of making Milhouse slip back into his old role as his right-hand man, the kid who’s so grateful to be in Bart’s orbit that he doesn’t think twice about doing anything that Bart tells him to do. 

His mom, frustrated, asked once, “If Bart jumped off a bridge, would you do that too?”

And Milhouse had said, “Yeah! If Bart’s doing it, there’s gotta be good reason for it.” Even if the reason was that Bart thought it would be cool to smash your face against concrete, just to see what it felt like to have a mouth full of broken teeth. 

It’s a small miracle that either of them survived their childhoods. 

****

* * *

The pool is a glittering aquamarine kidney with iridescent tiles the shape of fish around its side. Rumor is that Troy McClure offed himself here, after downing a lethal amount of vodka and antidepressants, but then again, Milhouse also heard that McClure is alive and well, somewhere in South America, living under the name of Rosalita of the Fishes. 

The place is deserted, except for them. 

Milhouse dips his toe in the water, his feet showing up greenish in the water. It wasn’t until he got out of Springfield he came to realize that most people weren’t actually yellow. 

There’s something in the water in Springfield. It makes people unique. 

“How’s Lisa?” His voice takes up some of the old horseness at the thought of Lisa, brilliant and untouchable. _Gone for good_. He should have asked about her before, but with everything that’s been going on... 

Bart is doing slow laps around the pool and at first he pretends not to hear. When Milhouse asks again, he finally answers: “How do you think she’s doing?” 

“That a serious question?” 

Making long, lazy strokes on the water, Bart goes backwards and forwards, his head pushing against the low-slung smog that passes for fresh air here in Springfield. He says, “She turned down the Roads -- _the Rhodes?_ \-- scholarship because she didn’t want to benefit from some dickweed colonist oppressor shitface. Lisa’s gonna save the world.” 

Milhouse laughs, a bark of amusement. “Sounds about right.” 

Bart stops swimming and squints up at him. “Dude. You plan on standing there all night?” 

****

* * *

The water is cold against his skin, even in the oppressive August heat, and he tries not to swallow too much of it. Bart still thinks it’s funny to sneaking up behind him and pull him underwater and hold him down until Milhouse punches and kicks his way to the surface again.

That’s when Bart kisses him. Again. This time his mouth tastes like the chlorine and blood. There’s a flicker of desperation in his eyes that Milhouse recognizes, that Milhouse knows all about. So he wraps his arms around Bart until he can’t push away, and laugh it off like it's something that never even happened.

“The _fuck_ ,” Milhouse keeps on repeating, sucking on Bart’s mouth, on Bart’s earlobes, on any bit of Bart that he can reach, that he can touch. “The _fuck_ are you doing this for?” 

“Because you want me to,” said Bart, and this Bart isn’t the guy who didn’t finish high school, who’s got the beginnings of a beer-belly, whose spiky blond hair is thinning on top. It’s the Bart Simpson Milhouse knew in the days before, when they were kids together, the golden child on whose palm summer turned and turned, forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary from Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer". It's an awful song.


End file.
